Public Company Suggestions

[kpenguin]

So, I'm doing a project in my economics class where I track the stock prices of three different public companies. My econ teacher suggests that we pick companies whose products we might actually be interested in, so that the project isn't entirely boring. He even suggested to me personally, that I pick Hasbro, seeing as it owns WotC which owns D&D.

Any ideas on cool (public) companies I could track? Preferably ones whose stock is traded in the US.

[snoopy13a]

I'm not sure what you consider cool but here's some companies:

Electronic Arts (video games) Nasdaq- ERTS
Coca-Cola- NYSE- KO
Pepsico- - NYSE- PEP
Microsoft- Nasdaq- MSFT
General Electric- (applicances, NBC TV shows such as Heroes)- NYSE- GE
Disney- (everything from ESPN to soon to be Marvel comics)- NYSE- DIS
Marvel Comics (wouldn't pick this as Disney will buy them and will make things complicated) -NYSE- MVL
Harley Davidson (motorcycles)- NYSE- HOG (get it, hog )
Boston Celtics (basketball team)- NYSE - BOS
Church and Dwight Co (Trojan condoms) - NYSE- CHD
Ford Motor Company - NYSE - F

[Erloas]

Church and Dwight Co (Trojan condoms) - NYSE- CHD

They make condoms? I had no idea. We have a Church and Dwight plant that is a sister plant to us, we sell them most/all of their soda ash. They don't make condoms there though, they make Arm and Hammer products, cat litter, floor cleaner, laundry detergent, and of course Baking Soda.

Something in the self defense/firearms category might be interesting to watch. Maybe not something I would actually invest in right now but it would be interested to see what happens to them. The availibility of ammuntion and guns was very low for quite a while right after Obama was elected because a lot of people started stocking up in preperation for the democrats changing the regulations about those sorts of things, though as of right now they've been focusing on other things. That would leave you companies like Ruger, Smith and Wessen, Beretta, Glock, and a few others, not sure which are publicly traded but I'm sure some of them are.

Personally for this sort of class I would pick some companies that have things going on right now to see how various elements effect them. Such as the change in presidents for firearm companies. Or Disney with the purchase of Marvel or Microsoft with the recent release of the Zune HD and upcomming Natal and Win7. Or General Motors to see how that all pans out.
Something like Coke or Pepsi or Harley might be interesting companies and they might be decent investments, but the chance of anything interesting happening to the stocks in the time frame you will be following them is very low.

[Keld Denar]

If you want to go technical, I'd suggest a company like Stryker
http://www.stryker.com/en-us/index.htm

They do a lot of biomedical engineering and are usually on the cutting edge of hospital and medical equipment. Pretty neat stuff, they always came to and heavily supported the job fairs where I went to college.

A nice homelands defense contractor to look into is General Dynamics
http://www.generaldynamics.com/

They make a lot of neat stuff like tanks and other ground assault vehicles. You know, when you really want to blow stuff up, its too hot for infantry, and you just can't justify air support.

[Jack Squat]

Proctor & Gamble (NYSE: PG). They make just about everything. Their best sellers

[Nomrom]

Actually, a gun company would be interesting to track right now. Most companies are hiring more people and trying to increase production because they can't keep up with the demand for ammo.

[thorgrim29]

lol... http://www.cracked.com/blog/buying-a...ricas-bullets/


In other new.... If you want some cool TSX stocks Garda World was on the rise last time I checked, and since the primary sector is booming companies that produce metals and things to build roads with ( like potash corp for example) are a good bet. In europe those I know are mainly Getinge, a very big Swedish medical conglomerate, and German based Siemens is pretty insanely big. Finally, on the us market.... Microsoft, Exon mobile (biggest profit in the world for 2007-2008 as I recall). And as was said, gun manufacturers are on the rise, and beer companies (Molson-Coors for excample) are thriving.

[Bonecrusher Doc]

Without getting into politics in this thread, I say look at stocks that reflect current political events. Health care, energy, military suppliers. For example, AKNS (solar panel installers) and IRBT (Roombas and military robots).

[Jimorian]

... and IRBT (Roombas and military robots).

"What do you mean we accidentally sent 100,000 Boombas to Walmart instead of Iraq?!?!"

(On the other hand, the desert has never been so dust free. )